‘Is he likely to say more?’ Edward demanded and Monthermer looked apologetic.
‘He has been put to the Question at length,’ he answered carefully, ‘but all we know is that he is called Guillaume of Shaws and was a notary in the service of Bishop Wishart. If he had not gotten himself stinking drunk in Berwick and babbled, we would not even know that much, your Excellent Grace.’
‘A notary,’ Edward muttered, sitting in the wool-swathed chair of Lancelot, both hands flat on the table. Somewhere, drifting on the iced wind, the slow, rolling chant of the monks celebrating the feast day clashed with the clamouring masses begging for the alms that had brought them in ragged flocks.
Edward wished they would shut up, but did not voice it aloud; he was already aware that his reputation for magnanimity, piety and regal magnificence had been badly damaged by Wallace. He had been matched up against a rebel outlaw from the wild land of Scotland and ended up looking mean and petty; the thought burned him, an ember irritation in his bowels which even the thought of this great Round Table he’d had made could not balm.
A splendid thing, the table. For a tourney in celebration of Arthur and the Grail, though Edward could not remember when that had been. When he had been enthused for tourneys and the ideals of Arthur, he supposed, which had all dissipated after Eleanor died.
‘With respect, father, surely all we know is that this man spoke rebellion in his cups. Why is he considered as more?’
Edward looked at his son, taking in the violet silk of him. Before this one, he thought. I had this table made before he was born, when I was young and strong and the best knight in Christendom, when I thought of all the powerful sons I would make to glorify the Kingdom I would create here.
Now there is this one, the only one God saw fit to leave standing, so no doubt He has a plan for him. I cannot see it, he added to himself and sighed, taking on the wearisome burden of educating the boy in the staringly obvious.
‘A notary of Wishart? Young, well-educated with a neat, perjink beard, a knowledge of letters and Latin and with ambitions thwarted and a deal of resentment. He did not growl rebellion, he babbled of plots, involving folk of high degree.’
His voice, rising as he spoke, was finally brought under control, but with difficulty, so that his son took a step back, then recovered himself.
‘Gaveston says …’
‘Gaveston says, Gaveston says.’
It had been a mistake and the younger Edward knew it as the spittle flew from his father’s lips.
‘Gaveston can kiss my arse,’ Edward thundered. ‘As I hear he has been doing to your own.’
‘The prince,’ Monthermer interjected smoothly, ‘simply means, I am sure, that we have no firm proof that this man plots anything other than vague vengeance against Bishop Wishart, who dismissed him, it seems, for repeated drunkenness. The man actually laughed when he was accused of plotting with the Comyn against Your Grace.’
‘Laughed?’
Monthermer inwardly winced; wrong revelation for the time, he thought and began feverishly to summon a way out of it.
‘Laughed,’ Edward repeated ominously. ‘If you cannot even put a man to the Question but that he finds humour in it, it is hardly surprising we have no evidence. I suggest you wipe the smile from the man’s face – take his damned notary beard with it if needs must.’
‘He is dead,’ Monthermer blurted out. ‘Such was the questioning we put him to that he decided to stand before God rather than admit anything, my liege. We certainly have no firm evidence we can use as justification for dismissing the Earl of Carrick from Your Grace’s pleasure.’
He allowed his voice to tail off, knowing the King would pounce on this, as a string dangled to a cat; Monthermer looked pointedly at the young prince, who nodded brief thanks and stepped away from the conversation.
‘Bruce,’ Edward said, staring at nothing. He liked the Earl of Carrick, but did not trust him in anything other than to oppose the Comyn.
‘The Comyn,’ he said aloud.
‘Indeed, my liege,’ Monthermer agreed. ‘It seems uncommonly like it is that family who are still bent on causing trouble. But it is hard to tell – the Bruce and Comyn are at each other’s throats.’
‘They are all plotting,’ Edward rasped. ‘I can hear them, like mice in the rushes.’
Monthermer spread his hands and offered nothing better than an insincere blandness of smile.